(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display apparatus.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is one of the more widely used flat panel display apparatuses. An LCD includes e.g., two panels having electric field generating electrodes such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode, a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two panels, and polarizers disposed on outer surfaces of the panels. The liquid crystal display apparatus displays an image by applying a voltage to the electric field generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer which in turn controls the alignment of liquid crystal molecules in the liquid crystal layer to control polarization of incident light.
An example of a type of a liquid crystal display apparatus is the vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display apparatus in which liquid crystal molecules are arranged such that major axes of the liquid crystal molecules are perpendicular to the panels in the state that no electric field is generated. The vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display apparatus has a high contrast ratio and it can readily provide a wide reference viewing angle.
To implement the wide viewing angle in the vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display apparatus, a method of forming cutout portions in electric field generating electrodes and a method for forming protrusions on the electric field generating electrodes has been proposed. Since the cutout portions and the protrusions can control the tilted directions of liquid crystal molecules, the tilted directions of the liquid crystal molecules can be distributed into various directions by varying the cutout portions and the protrusions, to thereby obtain a wide reference viewing angle.
Moreover, for the purposes of light efficiency, it is desirable that the tilted direction of the liquid crystal molecules have an angle of 45° with respect to the polarization direction of the polarizers. In addition with the vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display apparatus, the polarizers are attached so that the polarization directions of the polarizers are parallel or perpendicular to the gate lines or the data lines. Therefore, the cutout portions or the protrusions are disposed to extend in a direction with an angle of 45° with respect to the gate lines or the data lines.
However, in the situation where the pixel electrodes of the vertically aligned mode liquid display apparatus have the shape of a rectangle and are parallel to the gate lines and the data lines, the alignment of the liquid crystal molecules is disturbed due to an electric field generated between the adjacent pixel electrodes, so that a phenomenon known as texture may occur. Consequently, as a result of the above mentioned texture, the transmittance of the liquid crystal display apparatus may be reduced.
In an attempt to reduce texture, a method of overlapping a portion of a cutout portion of the common electrode with a side of the pixel electrode has been proposed. However, even with above proposed method, the aperture ratio of the liquid crystal display apparatus may still be reduced.
Thus, there is a need for a display panel which is capable of increasing the aperture ratio and the transmittance of a liquid crystal display apparatus and for a liquid crystal display apparatus including the display panel.